


Amateur Anthropology Hour

by lucky_spike



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Misunderstandings, Other, bones - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-23
Updated: 2020-10-23
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:08:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,211
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27155686
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lucky_spike/pseuds/lucky_spike
Summary: Aziraphale makes a surprising and not-entirely-welcome discovery one afternoon. Written for the Ineffable Halloween prompt 'Bones'.Aziraphale does not have any particular interest in geology, or in rocks. He doesn’t even really know much about them, and can’t tell granite from slate, even though he spent hours insisting to Crowley that granite counters in their home were an absolute must. But he does know when something looks odd, and this rock fits the bill.And, after brushing some of the trail dirt and old grass away, he knows why. It’s not a rock at all.After 6000 years of being an angel of the Lord and Principality of Earth, Aziraphale has, unfortunately, become very familiar with what bones look like.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 10
Kudos: 75





	Amateur Anthropology Hour

**Author's Note:**

> Written for day 3, "Bones", of the [13 days of Halloween prompt challenge ](https://racketghost.tumblr.com/post/628733325157302272) by tumblr user racketghost.

One of the things Aziraphale has taken up, in the years since he and Crowley moved to the South Downs, are what he refers to - much to Crowley’s bemused exasperation - as ‘rambles’. “Really, angel,” Crowley says, every time Aziraphale announces he’s going out for one, “can’t you just say ‘a walk’?” 

“No,” Aziraphale says every time. “It just gets Holly excited - look, now you’ve got to take her.” And indeed,  _ every time _ , Crowley forgets that you cannot simply say the word ‘walks’ in the house when you have a dog, even if it is a Hellhound, and the demon has to stalk off to find the leash before a solemnly insistent Hellhound in the shape of an Irish Setter stares him down into the Pit.

They are just walks though, really. Usually, Aziraphale likes to go out the back gate and stick to the dirt trail that runs along the cliffs, the sea crashing against the beach and, if he walks past that, the rocks below. It’s a pleasant route that provides a good view of the Atlantic: in the morning he can see the hulking shapes of ships heading in or out, and on clear evenings the sunsets are staggeringly beautiful with red and purple skies and the vast, glittering ocean.

Today, the afternoon is when he finds himself out on the path, hands in his jacket pockets to ward off the early autumn chill, a tartan scarf wrapped around his neck and occasionally flapping in the gentle breeze. Long grass that’s already turned golden waves in the open field, and the sea’s murmur along the coast drowns out any noise from the town he can just see on the horizon to the northeast. He’s letting his mind wander as he does, idling through a variety of topics including how to re-organize his library now that Crowley’s neary figured the system out, what to eat for supper, whether he thinks it’s worth ordering more of that whiskey-flavored tea, what that sailing boat might be doing so far out in the ocean, or …

Or …

Or something about a rock. He stops, hands still in his pockets, and looks down at the path quizzically. 

Aziraphale does not have any particular interest in geology, or in rocks. He doesn’t even really know much about them, and can’t tell granite from slate, even though he spent hours insisting to Crowley that granite counters in their home were an absolute must*. But he  _ does _ know when something looks odd, and this rock fits the bill.

[*  _ He had seen this on a home and garden television program, which Crowley  _ absolutely did not _ know Aziraphale had watched for at least 120 episodes. _ ]

And, after brushing some of the trail dirt and old grass away, he knows why. It’s not a rock at all. 

After 6000 years of being an angel of the Lord and Principality of Earth, Aziraphale has, unfortunately, become very familiar with what bones look like.

“Oh, no,” he says, and he kneels down to brush more dirt away, working furiously until the length of what he rather dreads might be a human femur becomes apparent. “Oh, no.” He wrings his hands. “No, oh dear.”

_ Not here _ , he thinks. Not in the South Downs, so close to home. It’s an old bone, ruddy with dirt and age, and he can see the top of what he assumes are probably the bones of the lower leg just peeking out of the dirt as well. 

He begins to scoop dirt away, although he’s not really sure why. Certainly, the sensible thing to do would be to call the police, wouldn’t it? Let them come down, and have their investigation, and take pictures and samples and the like and go about solving the crime. He could help them with some angelic guidance, of course, although without knowing the victim he honestly would be at the same disadvantage as the authorities. But then perhaps he … well, he  _ could _ know the victim. It’d be a big miracle to bring them back to life, but much less complicated to project an illusion of their appearance, perhaps some kind of clue …

He is digging all the while, and the more bones he uncovers the more it becomes apparent that this skeleton is human. He sets his jaw as he goes about the grim task - he doesn’t need to uncover the entire skeleton, just enough to confirm it’s not a deer or some other animal. The bones, however, look increasingly human as he reveals the ribs, an arm, the lower leg …

“Angel,  _ what _ are you doing?”

Crowley startles him out of his thinking, and his digging, and Aziraphale sits up from his position in surprise, only to get a lap full of Hellhound a second later. Crowley is standing back, hands in his pockets, the dog’s leash unclipped and looped around his neck, and one eyebrow arched so as to be visible over the sunglasses. “Taken up archaeology, have you?”

“ _ No _ .” Aziraphale shoos Holly from his lap and gets to his feet, brushing the dirt from the front of his coat and trousers. “Crowley, it’s a skeleton. A body.”

“What?” the demon stalks closer, apparently to study the skeleton better. Aziraphale knows it’s probably useless - Crowley’s eyes don’t work well without motion, and the bones and whoever they had belonged to are long past their days of moving. Still, he studies the ground anyway for a moment or two before saying, “It’s not a human, is it?”

Holly has also discovered the bones, and is industriously digging away at the dirt around the shoulderblade. Form shapes nature: she might have started out as an ill-tempered pony and had a brief stint as a true Hellhound, but four years into masquerading as a dog have done their work, and she enjoys a good dig as much as any other canine. Aziraphale scolds her, and she looks to him in brief acknowledgement before returning to her task. 

“Holly,  _ no _ ,” he insists. “That’s evidence.”

Crowley is stalking around the bones, clicking his tongue absently at the dog to call her away. “I don’t think it’s human, angel.”

“Of course it is - look at it.”

“ _ I am _ . It’s too big.”

Aziraphale frowns. “It’s a very big man - I’m sure of it.”

“Did you find the skull?”

“No.”

Crowley cocks his head. “Can’t be sure without the skull, can you? Right, well, I have my mobile, let’s call the police down and let them -”

“No, wait.” Aziraphale holds up his hand. “I … would like to try something.”

There is a long, long moment of silence that stretches between the two. Even the sea seems to be holding its breath. And then, eyes widening as he realizes what Aziraphale is going to do, Crowley says, “No, angel, don -”

He nearly gets the whole sentence out too, before Aziraphale snaps his fingers and calls forth the spirit of the poor deceased soul.

The poor, deceased soul that is soon stood between the two of them, Aziraphale facing it and Crowley at its back. It is a soul that stands fully eleven feet tall on its hind legs, and in spite of the bone structure, does not in body resemble a man at all.

Holly stares at the soul for a fraction of a second, curls her lip as if to growl, and then thinks better of it, slinking back to hide behind her demon. “Told you it wasn’t a human,” says Crowley, not even attempting to keep the self-satisfied smugness out of his voice.

Aziraphale cannot look away from the soul’s eyes, head tilted so far back he can feel a pull in his neck. He swallows. “It’s not, is it.”

The soul of the bear - an animal long extinct in Britain - twitches its ears, blinks twice more at the angel, and then roars. 

“Right.” Aziraphale jumps back and raises his hand to snap his fingers again. The soul cannot  _ do _ anything to him, of course, but corporeal or not, an eleven-foot-bear roaring in one’s face is startling at best. “So sorry to bother you, my mistake, back to … to bear heaven I suppose.” He snaps again, and the soul vanishes*. He sighs. Crowley snickers. “Don’t you even,” Aziraphale warns.

[* _ To bear heaven, which is lush with berry bushes and fruit trees and rivers bursting with fish. It is a considerable improvement from bear hell, which was where the soul of the bear had been previously. It had been a very bad bear. _ ]

“Even what?” Crowley asks innocently. He steps across the fossils, and once he is in front of the angel he leans in so that their noses are nearly touching. “Don’t I even  _ what _ ?”

“ _ You _ know, you old serpent.” Aziraphale swats the demon’s shoulder. Holly is taking advantage of the distraction, and is digging up one of the ribs, drool dribbling from her jowls as she does.

“Don’t think I do, really.” Crowley snickers. “But  _ so glad _ you solved the mystery of the murdered bear -  _ oof _ .” He stumbles backwards when Aziraphale plants a finger against his skinny chest and pushes. It’s barely a prod, and yet Crowley grabs at his chest as if stabbed. “ _ Aziraphale _ .”

“Be gone, demon,” Aziraphale grumbles, before turning on his heel and starting on his march back down the path toward their cottage, already feeling that he’s well due a nice cup of cocoa and perhaps a few biscuits for all this trouble. “I’m going to call the British Museum.”

He can hear Crowley following him, albeit a bit off the pace, no doubt swaggering along as usual, his voice getting more distant as Aziraphale stomps home. “What was the bear’s name? They’ll want it for the case file.” Aziraphale doesn’t respond. “Or the murder weapon? Was it a knife? I heard bears really go in for knife fights.  _ Oy! _ ”

Aziraphale pauses and turns - Crowley’s shout had taken him by surprise as much as whatever had prompted it. When he turns, he can only take in the tableau for a second before an unbidden, uncontrollable grin spreads across his face, and he starts to chuckle, raising one dirty hand to cover his mouth so Crowley won’t see. 

Holly has unearthed the femur - probably femur, Aziraphale isn’t really sure if bears have femurs - and is trying to drag it along the path with them. It’s nearly the length of her body, and apparently quite heavy, scoring the dirt path as the end she hasn’t got in her mouth bumps along. Crowley rushes back, and there is a brief tug-of-war before he wrestles the bone away from her. Aziraphale, still chuckling, re-traces his steps toward the skeleton, the better to watch the show. 

Carefully, Crowley sets the bone back in its place, and batting Holly away all the while, wrenches a rib loose instead. He hands it to the dog, and although she still looks mournfully to the femur, she takes the rib in her mouth and stands still while Crowley clips the leash back onto her collar, just in case. 

This time, Aziraphale waits for Crowley and the dog to catch up before he starts walking back to the cottage, and he keeps his pace a bit slower. Crowley casts no warmth, and Aziraphale is still a bit annoyed with him, but the skinny shoulder bumping off of his own is as the go is a comfort nonetheless. “You know they’re probably going to notice that’s missing,” he says eventually, as their home grows closer.

Crowley scoffs. “It’s just a little rib; they never will.”

“I’m certain they will. It is, after all, what they do.” They both look down to Holly, who is chomping happily on the rib as she trots along in front of them. 

“Tell you what,” Crowley says, after a long pause in which Aziraphale takes the opportunity of a quiet moment and slips his hand from his pocket and wraps his fingers around Crowley’s, “I’ll make you a deal.”

“Oh?” Aziraphale murmurs. “A deal with a devil?”

“Retired, but yeah, if you like.” Crowley smirks. “You let Holly keep her new toy -” Holly has a thousand toys, Aziraphale thinks, and she certainly doesn’t need one from the last ice age, but anyway, “- and I don’t tell the British Museum people that come to check out the skeleton that you spent  _ at least an hour _ trying to dig up the bloody thing thinking it was a murder victim.”

Aziraphale raises his eyebrows. “You won’t tell them about the soul?”

Crowley turns to stare at him. “Should I drop that in before or after I explain how I’m the Serpent of Eden, do you think?” And then he huffs, because Aziraphale pecks him on the cheek gently.

“Just a joke, dear. Alright. It’s a deal. Do we shake on it?”

Crowley shrugs. “Already holding hands, aren’t we? Close enough, I reckon.” They reach the back gate, and it obligingly swings open as they draw closer. Crowley lets go of Holly’s leash and the dog hurries into the garden with her prize, leash dragging behind her. She swerves away into the carefully-maintained ‘overgrowth’, and Aziraphale suspects the rib will be buried again soon enough. 

“So it’s a deal?”

“It’s a deal.” Crowley grins. “I’ll put the kettle on while you call the museum.”

**Author's Note:**

> For those of you not familiar with Holly, but perhaps wanting to know more about her, may I please invite you to check out [her origin story](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23034922/chapters/55085659).


End file.
